Swadeshi Indology and the Destruction of Sanskrit

Fearful
of impartial research, the petitioners appear to prefer a made-in-India
study of Sanskrit that churns out made-to-order truths.

The petitioners agitating for the removal of Professor Sheldon Pollock from his position as editor-in-chief of the Murty Classical Library of India series seek to destroy the very thing they are claiming to protect: free and independent scholarship in Indology.
The dangerously flawed approach of the petitioners is reflected in
their self-presentation and their style of argument. First, they
self-righteously claim to be defenders of Sanskrit, valiantly committed
to protecting Sanskrit scholarship from being colonised by foreigners.
Second, they argue by spurious analogy that Sanskrit is a national
possession: India owns Sanskrit, just as India owns its natural
resources.
Building on this analogy, the petitioners assert that just as it is a
grave error in judgment to surrender control of “our” vital resources
to foreigners, “outsourcing” production of Sanskrit scholarship makes
the nation vulnerable to cultural subversion. They insinuate that
despite his qualifications as an Indologist, Pollock is motivated by an
anti-Indian and, more precisely, an anti-Hindu agenda. In their appeal
to the sponsors of the Murty series, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy and
his son Rohan Murty, the petitioners claim that the only way to combat
such foreign subversion is to bankroll native scholars whose patriotism
and religious convictions are beyond reproach:

“The project must be part of the ‘Make in India’ ethos and not outsourced wholesale to American Ivy Leagues. Just
as your visionary role in Infosys showed the world that Indians can be
the top producers of IT, so also we urge you to champion the development
of Swadeshi Indology. This would entail developing an entire
ecosystem of India-based research, translations, journals and
conferences. These would be run by leading Indian academicians as well
as traditional practitioners.”

The petitioners wish to persuade the public that they are engaged in a
zero-sum struggle against foreigners. This is how they seek to
discredit Pollock despite the fact that he is part of a community of
philologists, which includes both Indians and non-Indians, that has made
important contributions to the serious study of Sanskrit.
Because the petitioners cannot challenge Pollock’s scholarly
credentials, they have resorted to personal attacks. They allege that
Pollock evinces “deep antipathy towards many of the ideals and values
cherished and practiced in our civilisation.” They declare that when
Pollock endorsed the principle of free speech and the right to dissent
at Jawaharlal Nehru University he exhibited “disrespect for the unity
and integrity of India.” What the petitioners disapprove of are
Pollock’s moral and political convictions. Their demand for Pollock’s
removal is not backed by a single criticism of his professional
qualifications but rest instead on the dubious allegation that he has an
“anti-Indian” agenda.
It is obvious that the petitioners are being disingenuous. They have
made a political disagreement into a pretext to malign Pollock’s
professional standing. This cynical move makes it impossible for any
objective person to take seriously their claim to be concerned about the
state of Sanskrit scholarship. If anything, they want to make Sanskrit
scholarship an instrument of their narrow worldview.
At the root of the problem lies the petitioners’ refusal to see that
it is by means of free and independent scholarly inquiry, not cultural
nationalism, that the depth and complexity of Indological texts are best
communicated. It is the impartial scholar, not the patriot defensive of
“his” values and civilisation, who is able to induct students into the
rich and often mysterious realms of classical and vernacular languages
and literatures. As Pollock suggests, translation itself can transport
us to “unfamiliar” places. This is very different from the stated aims
of the petitioners, who want to turn Sanskrit into an expression of
cultural pride, something akin to a bauble.
For good reason, these proponents of so-called Swadeshi Indology are
fearful of impartial research. They disparage the collaborative and
cosmopolitan nature of scholarship as “outsourcing.” They prefer a
made-in-India study of Sanskrit that churns out made-to-order truths.
Such a destructive vision should not be allowed to gain the upper hand.
It threatens to destroy the integrity of academic scholarship and to
degrade the public sphere.
Since the petitioners are fond of analogies, we would like to offer
them an analogy of our own. British scholars of Old English today do not
begin by asking whether a foreigner who offers a new translation of or
innovative commentary on the eighth-century poem The Dream of the Rood
secretly harbors “anti-British” sentiments. They would deem it
irrelevant, even absurd, to investigate whether a foreigner who devoted
decades of his life to the study of Anglo Saxon did so in order to
undermine the “unity and integrity” of the British nation or to promote
an anti-Christian agenda. Instead, they welcome and delight in the fact
that foreign scholars take such a keen interest in Old English. If some
British scholars were to disagree with the foreigner’s views, they would
challenge them at conferences and in peer-reviewed publications.
In short, British scholars of Old English poetry would not foolishly
seek to destroy their cultural patrimony by trying to determine whether
someone who has written on an Old English text is of “suitable”
background or holds the “right” views about British culture and history.
Such attitudes would degrade the quality of Old English scholarship,
making it attractive only to ethnic chauvinists. It is precisely such
chauvinism that is prominently displayed by the petitioners against
Pollock.
When Rohan declared his support
for Pollock, he showed a commitment to the norms and standards that
underwrite Indological scholarship. By doing so, he correctly refused to
give in to conspiracy theories peddled by foolish and dangerous people
with no understanding of what it takes to do research in the humanities.Sanjay Krishnan is Associate Professor of English at Boston
University and Teena Purohit is Assistant Professor of Religion at
Boston University.

Map of L K Advani's Rath Yatra of 1990

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